Copyright © 2023 Sebastien de Castell

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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses,

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 1

REAL MAGES DON’T WEAR

FUNNY HATS

P icture a wizard. Go ahead, close your eyes if you

need to. There he is, see? Old, skinny guy with a
long scraggly beard he probably trips over on the way to
the bathroom in the middle of the night. No doubt he’s
wearing some sort of iridescent silk robes that couldn’t
protect his frail body from a light breeze. The hat’s a must,
too, right? Big, floppy thing, covered in esoteric symbols
that would reveal to every other mage which sources of
magic this moron relies on for his powers? Wouldn’t want
a simple steel helmet or something that might, you know,
protect the part of him most needed for conjuring magical
forces from being bashed in with a mace or pretty much
any household object heavier than a soup ladle.
Yep. Behold the mighty wizard: a stoop-backed feeb
who couldn’t run up a long flight of stairs without giving
himself a heart attack.
Now, open your eyes and let me show you what a real
war mage looks like.
2 | SEBASTIEN DE CASTELL

‘Fall, you pasty-faced little fuckers!’ Corrigan roared as

our contingent of wonderists assaulted the high citadel
walls our employer had sent us to bring down ahead of
his main forces. ‘Fall so that I can rip your hearts out with
my bare hands and feed you to my favourite devil as an
appetiser before he feasts on your miserable souls!’
Yeah, Corrigan was a real charmer all right.
Big man, shoulders as broad as any soldier’s. I stood
maybe half an inch taller, but in every other dimension he
was my superior. The muscles on Corrigan’s forearms
strained against the bejewelled gold and silver bands he
always negotiated into his contracts. Tempestoral mages
of his calibre have no particular use for precious metals or
gemstones, but when it comes to selling his services,
Corrigan likes to – in his words – ‘Remind those rich arse-
holes who needs who.’
‘Watch this one, Cade!’ he shouted to me over the
tumult of battle all around us. Our employer’s foot
soldiers and mounted cavalry were fighting and dying to
keep the enemy troops busy while we wonderists did the
real damage. Corrigan’s eyes glowed the same unnerving
indigo as the sparks that danced along the tightly braided
curls of his hair and beard. Tendrils of black Tempestoral
lightning erupted from his callused and charred palms to
sizzle the air on their way to tear at stone and mortar like
jagged snakes feeding on a colony of mice. He grinned at
me, his white teeth in stark contrast to the ebony of his
skin, then laughed as each of his fists closed around one
of his lightning bolts. He began wielding them like whips,
grabbing hold of the stalwart defenders atop the walls and
sweeping them up into the sky before shaking them until
 The Malevolent Seven | 3

their spines snapped. Several other poor bastards leaped

to their deaths rather than waiting for Corrigan to take an
interest in them.
‘We don’t get paid extra for making them shit their
pants, you know,’ I reminded him, my fingers tracing
misfortune sigils in the air so that the volleys of arrows the
enemy fired at us missed their targets. ‘Our job is to
convince them to surrender, not commit suicide.’
‘Our job?’ The indigo braids of Corrigan’s beard rustled
with the same enthusiasm his lightning snakes showed as
they destroyed in minutes the gleaming, high-towered
citadel that had taken hardworking masons decades to
build. ‘Our job, Cade, is to make what we in the trade call
an impression.’
I suppose I couldn’t argue with that. Our employer
was an Ascendant Prince – self-declared, of course –
who’d been having some difficulty convincing the local
ruling archons of his divinely sanctioned rule. Sending a
coven of mercenary wonderists to wage mayhem and
murder (I never lied to myself by calling it ‘war’) wasn’t
likely to convince anyone of Ascendant Lucien’s holiness,
but as his Magnificence had explained it to me, ‘Kill
enough of the brave ones and the rest will pray to anyone
I tell them to.’
He might be a complete fucking moron, but Lucien
was right about that much, at least.
The crossbowmen atop the walls stopped firing their
bolts at us, no doubt tired of watching the wooden shafts
splinter against the rocks as the ill-luck spells I’d kept
around our division meant each and every one of them
missed their mark. Meanwhile, Corrigan and a couple of
4 | SEBASTIEN DE CASTELL

the others got on with blasting their brethren to pieces

with impunity.
Corrigan lightened up on his thunderous assault and
motioned for a nearby echoist to spin a little sonoral
magic to amplify his voice as he called out to the citadel’s
terrified defenders, ‘There now, my little ducklings, no
need to jump. Just open up the gates for Uncle Corrigan
and we can all have a nice cup of tea before supper.’ He
glanced back at me. ‘There. Happy?’
‘You really are a prick, you know that?’ I took advan-
tage of the momentary distraction among the archers to
give my fingers a shake before renewing the shield over
our squad of eleven wonderists.
Corrigan shrugged. ‘What do you expect? I conjure
rampant fucking devastation from the Tempestoral plane
for a living so that one group of arseholes can conquer
another group of arseholes – and then a couple of years
later, that second group of arseholes hires me to kill off
the first lot. That can’t be good for the soul.’
Truer words had never been spoken.
‘Enemy wonderists!’ one of our comrades shouted.
Up on those high walls, the tell-tale shimmer of
Auroral magic (that being the ‘nice people’ kind)
appeared: Archon Belleda had finally sent out her own
contingent of wonderists to kick our arses.
When Corrigan got a look at the silk-robed, grey--
bearded scarecrows standing up there, he was pissing
himself laughing so hard his tendril spell almost
collapsed.
‘Look,’ he shouted to the rest of us, ‘real live Auroral
mages have come to cast our souls to the pits! Kneel
 The Malevolent Seven | 5

before these noble miracle-workers and weep for mercy,

for surely the judgement of the Lords Celestine is at
hand!’
The rest of us didn’t laugh. We focused on our jobs,
which now included sending those dignified old men and
women to their graves. It wasn’t Archon Belleda’s fault her
defenders couldn’t beat us. They were locals, patriots
fighting for a noble cause, while we were mercenaries,
motivated by greed and lousy upbringings, loyal only to
the fees our employer had promised us.
The poor bastards never had a chance.
One of the enemy wonderists, a silver-haired woman
already dripping with nervous sweat, took the lead. Blood
seeped from her eyes as she cast a sorcerous incantation
we in the business call a ‘heartchain’, because it pierces
right through defensive spells to burst the enemy’s blood
vessels. It’s not the sort of thing any of us would use
because it’s a conjoined sympathy spell, which means a
heartchain also kills the person casting it. I marvelled at
the old codger’s redoubtable courage and sacrifice as the
thread-like silver tether stretched across the two hundred
yards between them to bind her heart to Corrigan’s.
The big brute’s eyes went wide as his thick fingers
clawed at his own chest. He turned to me, but no sound
came from his lips as he mouthed my name.
Corrigan Blight was a monster, no doubt about it. He
killed people for money, and he did it without ever ques-
tioning whether such acts could be justified. Any time I’d
asked whether perhaps there was a better way to earn a
living, he’d slap me across the head and proudly declare,
‘Didn’t make the rules, don’t plan to break them.’ If you
6 | SEBASTIEN DE CASTELL

stuck him next to the old lady on the wall and asked a
hundred people which one of them deserved to live, not
one of them would say Corrigan.
Well, except me.
Corrigan was my friend, which was a hard thing to
admit to myself and an even harder thing to find in this
profession. He’d saved my life more times than I’d saved
his, and I know that doesn’t justify the choice I made in
that moment, but maybe it explains why, without giving it
a second’s thought, I conjured a poetic injustice.
Beneath my leather cuirass, a set of three intertwining
sigils etched into my torso began to smoulder, then the
sigils appeared in the air before me as floating scrawls of
ebony ink, curves and edges glimmering. I could feel the
seconds counting down towards Corrigan’s heart bursting
in his chest.
He clutched at my shoulder in panic, or maybe
searching for a final moment of human connection. I
shrugged him off; I needed to concentrate.
I placed my right hand above the first sigil, which
looked like a distorted stick figure crowned in seven rays;
it represented the enemy spellcaster. When I moved my
hand upwards, the sigil followed, and I placed it in a
direct line between myself and the Auroral mage casting
the heartchain.
The second sigil, a gleaming black circle with a
second, smaller half-circle overlapping the top of it,
looked almost like a padlock. It moved of its own accord,
floating silently up to Corrigan’s forehead, which would
have unnerved him no end if he’d not been too busy
dying to notice.
 The Malevolent Seven | 7

The particular forms of magic I work manifest a kind

of elementary consciousness within them, which meant
that the spell knew Corrigan was the target of the Auroral
mage’s heart-rending invocation. I quickly placed three
fingers atop the locking sigil, then moved it between me
and the enemy wonderists atop the citadel walls, looking
for my target.
This is where casting a poetic injustice gets tricky.
Altering the binding on someone else’s spell requires
finding someone to whom they have an already strong
emotional connection, which would usually require time
and research, neither of which we had to spare. But these
idiots had made it easy for me. Beside the Auroral mage
stood a fierce-eyed old gentleman holding her hand. I
might not be the world’s most sentimental guy, but even I
could sense the love between them. I quickly tethered the
targeting sigil to him.
Now for the third sigil. With the thumb and forefinger
of each hand, I grasped the two-headed coiled snake,
ignoring the ink-black tongues that flickered menacingly
at me, pulled the spiral straight and attached a head to
each of the other two sigils.
The thin silver thread binding the Auroral mage to
Corrigan snapped away from him, whipping through the
air with blinding speed before attaching itself to the old
man next to her. Even when he saw the heartchain
coming for him, he didn’t make a move to abandon her.
Maybe he was her husband and such a cowardly thought
never occurred to him.
Till death did they part, as no one with a conscience
might say.
8 | SEBASTIEN DE CASTELL

Corrigan painfully sucked air into his lungs, giving me

just the barest nod of acknowledgment, then, smiling with
smug self-satisfaction, renewed his attack on the walls
with just as much vigour and twice as much pleasure as
before.
I had to lean against him just to keep from collapsing
to the ground. Poetic injustice spells are hard on the body.
And the soul, I guess.
In case I hadn’t made this clear already, we’re not
exactly the good guys.
But don’t worry – by the end of this story, me, Corrigan
and the five other wonderists who would come to be
known as the Malevolent Seven would definitely be
getting what was coming to us.
 2

AND THE WALLS CAME DOWN

W atching the walls of a once magnificent citadel

being torn down isn’t pleasant. The rumbling,
crumbling, thunderous collapse of stone, wood and
mortar is soon followed by the screams of those unfortu-
nate enough not to have died instantly in the fall. Thanks
to a few time-delayed eruption spells, ingeniously placed
with the help of engineers who ought to be building
things rather than figuring out how to blow them apart, a
magnificent feat of architecture that once made people
believe the world could be a safe, civilised place was now
proof of the opposite.
Cheers rose up from the foot soldiers on our side. Men
and women who hours before had been glaring resent-
fully at us because we got better pay, better tents and
better prostitutes than they did were now slapping us on
the back and praising our achievements to the heavens.
I doubted anyone up there was pleased.
My part in this accursed endeavour left me sick to my
10 | SEBASTIEN DE CASTELL

stomach. It wasn’t just the spells themselves, which were

vile enough. It was the thrill all this devastation produced
in everyone around me, a pleasure I couldn’t seem to keep
from slithering inside me until I was cheering right along-
side them. Maybe it just felt good to be part of a team
again.
‘Silord Cade! Silord Cade Ombra, I need to see you!’
The voice calling out my name was young, enthusi-
astic and exasperating. When I’d first met the gangly,
witless teenager, I’d assumed he was some camp
follower looking to worm his way into my tent. Turned
out he was an amateur luminist hoping to apprentice
himself to a war mage. I should’ve sent him packing
when he’d first suggested the idea; it would have saved
me having to constantly resist the urge to slap him
senseless.
‘What did I tell you last time?’
‘Silord?’
Okay, this time I did have to belt him – as much for his
own safety as my satisfaction. Silord, a portmanteau of
‘sir’ and ‘lord’, is, technically, how one should address a
war mage, since in terms of rank we sit somewhere
between a cavalry officer and a minor noble.
However . . .
‘Our employer – your employer, in case you forgot –
doesn’t approve of that particular honorific,’ I reminded
the boy. Again.
Corrigan whispered conspiratorially to him, ‘Ascen-
dant Lucien feels such titles risk confusing the peasantry
about who the gods love and who they just sort of put up
with.’
 The Malevolent Seven | 11

‘But Sil—’ He caught himself just in time to avoid a

black eye. ‘Master Ombra—’
‘Ascendant Lucien doesn’t like hearing people refer to
his subordinates as “master”, either,’ I told him. ‘Nor, by
the way, do I appreciate you using my fucking real name
in front of other people when there could be spies about
taking stock of who should be on the receiving end of a
sharp blade should the opportunity present itself. For the
duration of this engagement, you will refer to me as
Brother Cerulean. You will refer to our big friend with the
ridiculous violet-blue hair’ – I gestured to Corrigan, who
was practically glowing from the admiration of the crowd
of soldiers and camp followers flooding around him – ‘as
Brother Indigo.’
‘And what should I call myself?’ asked the boy.
‘You are Cousin Green.’
And never was there a name more apt.
Corrigan whistled through his teeth and shoved his
would-be admirers away. I knew without having to look
around that this meant our employer was approaching.
‘Ah, Silord Cade, Silord Corrigan,’ Ascendant Lucien
said graciously.
I shot Green a look so he’d know this wasn’t a contra-
diction of my earlier injunction. Lucien was just showing
us how magnanimous he could be. By nightfall, you could
be certain one of the soldiers would have mistakenly
referred to us as ‘silords’ and Lucien would have them
crucified for it to make sure everyone remembered the
rules.
‘Your stratagem worked just as you predicted, Ascen-
dant Lucien,’ I said, swallowing the bile engendered by
12 | SEBASTIEN DE CASTELL

having to compliment this silver-haired, alabaster-faced

moron who couldn’t plan his way out of a privy. On the
other hand, a little arse-kissing after a victory does help
loosen the purse strings.
Lucien gave me that smile of his – the one that had
already kept me up several nights during this campaign
contemplating murdering him and switching sides. I
might have, too, but there are rules to the game we play.
Breaking a contract can damn your soul faster than razing
a dozen villages.
‘And you executed the plan flawlessly,’ Lucien
enthused, always determined to best me, even in flattery.
‘Such skill and loyalty deserves recognition . . . and
reward.’
A dozen of his private guard – who were, so far as I
could tell, just regular soldiers wearing shinier armour
beneath their gaudy white-and-gold tabards – marched
smartly up to us in two columns, escorting a group of
what any decent person would have to call boys and girls.
They were clean and well-dressed in fresh silver-white
gowns, which made me feel sick, because it meant they
were here for a purpose.
‘For my wonderists!’ Lucien declared, drawing oohs
and ahhs from hard-bitten soldiers who were in no way
impressed by this act of perversity.
The boys and girls smiled at us with every part of their
faces but their eyes, which betrayed them. I grinned as
wide as I could without letting what was left of my
integrity spew from my mouth.
Corrigan put a collegial hand on my shoulder and
squeezed hard enough to make the bones creak. This was
 The Malevolent Seven | 13

his way of keeping me from throttling our beloved

employer then and there.
The Lords Celestine, benevolent rulers of the Auroral
realms, rely on their human worshippers to enact their
policies upon the Mortal plane. Some of these agents act
as judges to punish heretical crimes; others, like Lucien,
‘spread the Auroral song of devotion and self-sacrifice’.
Some are even raised in monastic institutions to believe
that their own spiritual fulfilment can come about only by
giving themselves utterly – in every sense of the word – to
whomever they are gifted by their religious leaders. These
lucky boys and girls are known as the sublime. It’s said
there’s nothing you can do to a sublime – not even murder
them – that won’t fill them with righteous bliss. It’s all
consensual, of course, as long as you’re a piece of human
garbage who thinks teenagers dream of becoming your
playthings.
‘The Ascendant’s cunning in battle is rivalled only by
his generosity,’ I said, and though I doubted I managed to
keep the disgust and nausea from my voice, Lucien none-
theless nodded graciously.
‘One each,’ he said, wagging a finger at the others
among our little cadre of mercenary wonderists, ‘but for
my captains, my chancer Cade Ombra and my thunderer
Corrigan Blight, I offer two!’
While a centuries-old citadel fell behind us, crushing
men and women who, if not innocent, at least deserved
something better out of life than being squashed to death
beneath the rubble, those on our side clapped daintily as
if we were at a tea party and His Most Gracious Ascen-
dancy had just given a toast.
14 | SEBASTIEN DE CASTELL

My fellow wonderists made their picks of the most

comely, except Corrigan, who, noting my glare, gave me a
slight nod to acknowledge that whatever pleasure he
might have taken wouldn’t be worth the consequences I
would dish out later to any among our number who
sampled too deeply of our employer’s magnanimous ‘gift’.
Unable to risk giving offence by turning down the
generous gesture, I chose the two most frightened of the
group: a young boy of about eleven – who Lucien kept
leering at – and the girl of seventeen hugging him protec-
tively as if that would do either of them any good.
Ascendant Lucien shot me a curiously satisfied look,
which I met with one of those smiles men like him recog-
nise as the enjoyment of terror over beauty.
‘Excellent choices,’ His Ascendancy said to me. Then
he raised his arms wide to the others. ‘Revel tonight, my
loyal followers, for tomorrow, we burn every last one of
the false Archon Belleda’s followers on the stake!’
‘But Your Ascendancy,’ I said, probably louder than I
should have, ‘our contract was to induce Archon Belleda’s
people to capitulate to your rule, not kill them – already
they raise her flag upside down to signal their surrender.’
Lucien’s shoulders rose and fell wearily, as if to say he
was just as disappointed in this recent development as I
was. ‘Alas,’ he said, turning to leave. ‘They waited too
long.’
This was my cue to shut up, but I made one last
appeal. ‘They worship the Aurorals, as do you. Surely the
Lords Celestine would nev—?’
‘The Lords Celestine have sanctioned my ruling in this
matter,’ Lucien informed me, adding a gravel to his voice
 The Malevolent Seven | 15

which hadn’t been there a second ago. ‘Do you wish to

question their judgement? Perhaps you have some special
relationship with the Aurorals that gives you a deeper
insight into their wishes?’
‘Of course not, Ascendancy,’ Corrigan said, casually
driving the second knuckle of his forefinger into my spine.
‘Cade here’s just addled from the battle. All that Fortunal
magic, you know. Makes him forget himself – but only
temporarily.’
Lucien gave a gracious chuckle before leading the
procession of happy soldiers, wonderists and soon-to-be
miserable sublimes on their way, leaving me and Corrigan
standing there listening to the cries of the dying
behind us.
‘Don’t fucking say it,’ I warned him.
He kept his mouth shut, but his expression made it
clear that this wasn’t our fight, and that if I couldn’t
summon the self-discipline to keep my mouth shut, he’d
do it for me. We were mercenaries, not heroes. Wars
almost always end with a good old-fashioned massacre,
whether by steel or by spell.
I returned him a look that said I understood
completely, would heed his warning to keep quiet, but
also that Ascendant Lucien was going to meet with an
unfortunate accident tonight, and so would anyone who
tried to get in my way.
 3

NECESSARY CRUELTIES

T hose who wage war for a living see the world

around them as territory. The most breath-taking
landscape, the most heart-rending scene of devastation,
both are merely lines on a map to be erased and redrawn
with pen and ink when diplomacy served, or with swords
and blood when it did not. It should be no surprise, then,
that Ascendant Lucien’s camp was a moveable nation,
with tented cantons and districts arranged according to
his own design. Just as in any city, location was a marker
of status easily understood by those who lived nearby.
‘Your tent is like a palace!’ the boy – Fidick, he’d said
his name was – declared.
‘Have you ever been inside a palace?’ I asked.
He gave a light, nervous laugh. ‘No, Silord. Never.’
‘Then what the hell do you know?’
The girl, who’d told me her name was Galass, gave the
boy a quieting glare and me something more akin to a
snarl. She so obviously saw herself as his protector that I
 The Malevolent Seven | 17

almost pitied her the heartbreak for which she was surely
destined.
Galass was on the cusp of womanhood, dark-haired
and pretty in that way that waxed and waned depending
on her expression, but Fidick was something else entirely.
He was possessed of a luminous beauty that would make
great artists want to lock him away so that no one but they
could capture his golden curls and cherubic features.
Others would want to lock him away for far worse
reasons.
Someday soon Galass would be cradling Fidick’s trem-
bling body, wiping away the blood and filth emanating
from every orifice, whispering to him that it was all right
now and he should just put the recent atrocities done to
him out of his mind. And when Fidick finally slept, she
would contemplate the ways in which she might, with
sublime kindness, cause him such permanent disfigure-
ment that he would for evermore be an object of pity and
disgust rather than desire.
The worst part of it all? That nonsense about spiritual
bliss they’d been filled with at whichever monastery
Lucien had acquired them from would be the only retreat
from the misery of life available to them. Sometimes a lie
really is more comforting than the truth. I should know.
There was a small stool outside my monstrously
spacious tent of dyed blue canvas featuring front flaps
painted with golden esoteric sigils (which did nothing,
but whoever Lucien had in charge of our accommoda-
tion had taken some artistic license with the design). I
sat down and wiped the muck and grime from my
trousers and boots with the towel left there for that
18 | SEBASTIEN DE CASTELL

purpose, then handed it to the boy. ‘Clean your feet,

both of you. I don’t want you tracking mud into my
“palace”.’
They did as they were told while I undid the spell
knots from the cords fastening the tent flaps, trying not to
breathe in the stink of putrefied flesh emanating from the
recently charred canvas. Some curious individual was
now walking around camp with a couple of missing
fingers.
‘Where are the tents of the other wonderists?’ Fidick
asked, glancing around. ‘Aren’t you friends with them?’
‘Fidick!’ Galass hissed.
‘It’s fine,’ I said, only because I didn’t want her
thinking she could decide what was or wasn’t discussed
under my roof. ‘His Ascendancy prefers that his
wonderists be spread out in case one of us is urgently
needed to fend off an unexpected magical attack.’
A more truthful answer would have been that Lucien
didn’t like the idea of a coven of wonderists nestled
together in the bosom of his encampment where they
might be tempted to talk late into the night, drinking,
imbibing various pleasure drugs and wondering aloud
why those whose magic was crucial to winning the war
shouldn’t be the ones to rule over what was left when said
war was over.
Was that why he’d ordered us to slaughter Archon
Belleda’s troops in the morning? Did Lucien want to make
such monstrous villains of his wonderists that no one else
would ever trust us? Why would the Lords Celestine,
those beneficent guardians of morality, sanction such a
massacre in the first place?
 The Malevolent Seven | 19

‘Your domain is magnificent, Silord,’ Galass said as she

stepped inside.
The tent was indeed glorious, the rough canvas barely
visible from inside, hidden as it was by long lengths of
gleaming azure silk hanging from hooks attached to the
very top and draping over the ten-foot-long mahogany
poles holding the shape. The light of half a dozen bronze
oil lanterns twinkled off the precious threads woven into
the thick carpets covering the ground, each one depicting
some of Lucien’s many victories – most of which hadn’t
actually taken place yet, but it’s never too early to be
thinking about commemorating one’s glorious legacy.
Walk into the average soldier’s tent and you’ll be hit
with the odours of musk, sweat and stale beer. Mine was
scented with fresh flowers and baskets of pine needles,
which Lucien’s overworked retainers would refresh each
morning before battle. Every evening they would deliver a
cask of wine from the Ascendant’s own vineyards three
hundred miles away, as well as a variety of delicacies
utterly unlike the swill afforded his hard-fighting troops.
War is hell, just not for everybody.
The ostentatious accommodations were more for
Lucien’s benefit than mine; he wanted those among his
officers who might be contemplating their own advance-
ment to be aware that he was the one who commanded
the deadliest wonderists in the country. As petty acts of
self-aggrandisement went, this was one I didn’t actually
mind.
I removed the preposterous golden cape Lucien
insisted we wear in battle and hung it inside the polished
oak armoire next to my silk-sheeted bed. Fidick and
20 | SEBASTIEN DE CASTELL

Galass were still standing at the entrance, waiting for my

commands.
‘Get in here. Make yourselves . . .’
I was about to say at home, but that would have been
dishonest. They wouldn’t be here more than a single
night. My hesitation confused Galass and Fidick in the
worst way possible: they began disrobing.
‘Stop—’ I said, too loudly and forcefully for anyone’s
good.
The pair of them froze, hands on the hems of their
silvery-white gowns. Fidick’s glance flitted around the
tent, clearly worried I’d changed my mind and was about
to banish them from this temporary but welcome
opulence.
‘Have we displeased you, Silord?’ Galass inquired,
using pretty much the same inflections I use when asking,
‘What the fuck is your problem, arsehole?’
I began unclasping the bronze bindings of my leather
cuirass. ‘Forgive my outburst,’ I said. ‘The two of you are
welcome to stay here for the night – as long as we come to
certain agreements about what you will and won’t see
here. Either way, I give you my word I won’t lay hands on
either of you.’
Fidick’s breath came out in a whoosh and he looked so
relieved I thought he might faint with joy. Then his eyes
caught something to my right and his face lit up. I
followed his gaze to a bowl of red and purple plums on
the far side of the bed. You don’t generally find much in
the way of fresh fruit in army camps.
‘Help yourself,’ I said, then thought better of it. ‘You
may have one now, and another in the morning.’ Those
 The Malevolent Seven | 21

unaccustomed to such luxuries invariably overindulge,

and I don’t know any spells for getting diarrhoea out of
my carpet.
The boy gingerly stepped past me to begin a careful
tour of the fruit bowl, never touching anything, just
sweeping his gaze over every inch of its contents in search
of the perfect choice.
Galass folded her arms across her chest. ‘Why?’ she
asked.
‘Because it’s too sweet if you’re not used to it,’ I replied.
‘I don’t want either of you—’
‘No, I mean, why do you have no intention of making
use of our bodies?’
Making use of our bodies.
I liked her bluntness, but the fact that this was the
third time she’d been belligerent suggested that her
perceptiveness could be dangerous to both of us. She read
in my words and deeds a weakness that suggested I
committed acts of violence for money but lacked the
stomach to do so for pleasure – and she was right, after a
fashion, which was a problem because it might require me
to prove her wrong.
‘I have no taste for the flesh of unripe fruit,’ I said.
She snorted at my attempt to be clever. ‘You mean you
won’t violate those who don’t desire you,’ she corrected.
What the hell was wrong with this kid? Did she have a
monumental death wish?
I finally got the damned leather cuirass off and let it
fall to the ground. My sweaty, grimy shirt followed. I don’t
usually like anyone to see me unclothed, but neither of
these two were likely to recognise the black and silver
22 | SEBASTIEN DE CASTELL

markings burned onto my chest, arms and back, and in

any case, most people get nauseous if they stare at the
sigils too long.
I grabbed a jug of water and a clean towel and began
wiping myself down. ‘All that bullshit your teachers told
you about how spiritually rewarding it is to sublimate
your will to that of another aside, I prefer the companion-
ship of those who enjoy my attentions,’ I replied.
My response appeared to annoy my unwelcome guest,
which irritated me in return. It’s not like I was asking for
gratitude – I wasn’t nearly so foolish as that. But did she
have to keep needling me like this?
‘You haven’t asked,’ she said.
Fidick looked up from the plum he was half devouring
and half dribbling down the front of his gown, his eyes
going from the girl to me.
I squeezed out the filthy towel and soaked it a second
time. ‘Asked what?’
‘You haven’t asked if Fidick or I desire you. So how do
you know? Perhaps I want you right now, Silord.’ She
began playing with the loose collar of her silvery gown.
I wasn’t fooled. She was goading me, though I had no
idea to what end. ‘Maybe I just find you ugly,’ I said.
‘Is that so?’
She stripped me with her eyes. Unlike Fidick’s almost
perversely innocent beauty, Galass knew exactly how to
wield her looks for maximum effect, which made her
infinitely more attractive – and dangerous.
‘You’re lying again, Silord,’ she said, arching her back
just so and causing the strap of her silvery gown to slip off
one shoulder. ‘You don’t find me ugly at all. Here I am,
 The Malevolent Seven | 23

gifted to you by the Ascendant himself, my duty as clear to

me as it is to you, yet you pretend indifference.’ She took a
step closer. ‘You can’t hide your desire for me, Silord.’
I raised my outstretched hand. ‘Do you also see this?
Because in about five seconds you’re going to see the back
of it close up if you don’t stop taunting me.’
She stepped back, but smiled as if she’d just won the
game. ‘And still you haven’t asked.’
‘Asked what?’
‘Whether I desire you.’
‘Why the fuck would you?’
‘Because you’re right about what they beat into us at
the monastery, Silord. The “ecstasy of spiritual submis-
sion” is – how did you put it? Bullshit? – but if the Ascen-
dant discovers we’ve failed to please you, Fidick and I will
suffer a fate far worse than anything you can imagine.’
Which suggests Lucien specifically wanted these two for
me. But why?
‘He won’t find out from me, so if the two of you can
keep your mouths shut—’
She raised her chin. ‘You assume lying comes as easily
to us as it does you. You denigrate any pride a sublime
might take in the pleasure we give others as beneath you,
but it is all the pride I have. For all your pretences at
nobility, you don’t actually care whether I desire you. You
simply believe such pathetic creatures as Fidick and I are
incapable of our own desires.’
It had been a long time since a sublime had schooled
me in philosophical incongruity. I was looking forward to
being rid of this one as soon as possible.
I walked to the armoire, found a clean shirt, slid it over
24 | SEBASTIEN DE CASTELL

my head and said, ‘You want to talk about my “pretences

at nobility”? Let me tell you, sister, only rich lordlings and
sublime obliviates are stupid enough to believe a slave can
desire her oppressors any more than a man dying of thirst
desires a glass of water!’
Her head rocked as if I’d struck her across the jaw.
Fidick, still sucking on his plum, ran to her side.
For reasons I can only attribute to my imminent
participation in the slaughter of the defenders of Archon
Belleda’s citadel, I actually felt guilty. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I
didn’t mean to insult you.’
Galass shook her head. ‘A necessary cruelty, Silord. I am
grateful for it.’ The blue eyes went icy. ‘Allow me to repay your
generosity in kind and suggest that the difference between
you and me is not that I am a slave and you a mercenary. What
separates us is that I know I am a slave, and you still harbour
the illusion that you have free will, as if Ascendant Lucien
asks you to do his bidding, or more laughably, negotiates for
your services. The coin with which he pays you affords you
the self-deception denied to us.’ She held up her wrists. ‘See?
No chains here either, but I feel their presence.’ She walked to
the centre of the tent, grabbed my wrists, and held my hands
up between us. ‘Can you see your chains, Silord Cade?’
It was a mad thing to do. Wonderists aren’t known for
their appreciation of those who lay hands on them
without permission. But somewhat to my surprise, I
found myself laughing.
So this is why she keeps goading me. She thinks if she gets
a rise out of me, whatever vile abuses I’m secretly intending for
the two of them will be directed at her, not Fidick.
 The Malevolent Seven | 25

I was about to call her on it when I heard a yipping

sound, followed by a low growl. There was a dog in my
tent – a jackal, actually, with tall ears, a long, sharp snout
like that of a wolf, and a face I doubted even its mother
could have loved.
‘Mister Bones!’ Fidick said excitedly, looking around
for the animal.
My eyes narrowed as I spotted the beast near the
entrance. I studied it, searching for any spell or charm
that would explain how he’d got into my tent without
permission. Galass must have mistaken my look of irrita-
tion for impending violence because, for the first time, she
looked anxious.
‘Please, Silord!’ she cried and rushed to take hold of
the jackal. ‘He means no harm. He follows Fidick and me
around everywhere. I’ll send him away – or if you must
kill him, I beg you, do so quickly. Do not—’
‘Why are you so convinced I want to kill this mutt?’ I
asked, then remembered the rumour going around camp
that one of my fellow mages sacrificed dogs as part of his
ritual preparations for each day’s battle.
I knelt down and held out my hand for the jackal to
sniff.
The ugly little beast padded closer, putting himself
between me and Galass. His little dog-like head hunched
forward, nostrils flaring, before showing me his teeth. The
grey-brown fur bristled, the stripes at the tip of its tail
somehow sharpening, as he looked poised to go for my
throat at any moment – then he finally sniffed at my hand
and let out a slightly more companionable snarl that
26 | SEBASTIEN DE CASTELL

nonetheless conveyed that there would be trouble if I

crossed his favourite humans.
Even the dogs were telling me my business lately.
‘Let’s get something straight, Mister Bones,’ I said,
deliberately sticking my finger between his teeth. ‘You can
stay here tonight and protect your charges, but if you pee
on anything in this tent, I will transform you into a three--
legged cat.’
‘You can do that?’ Fidick asked.
‘Better for all of us that you never find out.’
‘Thank you,’ Galass said, grabbing the jackal and
cuddling it. ‘You are . . . kinder than the others.’
I could almost believe her this time, which only made
me angrier. ‘I’m not kind, you idiot child! I’m not noble,
honourable, decent or compassionate. I’m barely fucking
human. I’m . . .’ Why was I trying to explain myself to this
kid? ‘I’m a mercenary, that’s all, halfway to a monster as
bad or worse than Lucien, if you want the truth. I’d rather
not travel farther down that road, that’s all.’
I rose up and strode to the small chest next to my bed,
traced a pattern in the air with my ring finger while whis-
pering the words that would restrain the curse as I opened
the lid long enough to fish out two coins. I turned back to
Galass and Fidick and held one out for each of them. ‘Do
you have the means to keep these hidden? Have you some
place where you can be sure no one will find them?’
Galass nodded, while Fidick stared at the sheen of
gold, fingers reaching out of their own accord. I held the
coins up out of his reach.
‘Here’s the deal,’ I said. ‘You’ll stay here tonight. I’ll see
you fed and kept safe until morning. When you leave,
 The Malevolent Seven | 27

you’ll have these. If you’re smart, you’ll wait until the

battle begins tomorrow and run from the camp while the
army is still revelling in the carnage. They’ll leave some of
the defenders alive to play with, which will keep them
sufficiently occupied that no one will be paying attention
to you. Head back the way the army came. Find the least
ruined town left standing and set yourself up with a place
to live and an apprenticeship. I recommend a tannery. The
pay’s good and the stink’s no worse than corpses on a
battlefield – assuming you’re clever enough to keep
someone from taking the money away from you.’
‘And the price?’ Galass asked. She was watching me,
not the coins.
‘You let me cast a memory binding on you.’
She shook her head and stepped away. The jackal
growled. ‘No,’ she said. ‘No mage’s curse for me.’
‘But Gal,’ Fidick cried, ‘this could be—’
‘I told you before, wonderist,’ she said, holding up her
arms, ‘I’m not blind to my shackles. I’ll not add your foul
magic to harden them further.’
‘It’s not that kind of binding,’ I insisted. ‘I just need . . .
there are things I have to do now – things I don’t want any
of my fellow mages to learn about. I can’t risk you telling
them, or them drawing the memories from you by some
other means, so I’ll need to . . . tamper with your recol-
lections.’
‘We’ll forget what you did to us?’ Fidick asked,
sounding suspicious for the first time.
I shook my head. ‘You’ll remember what you saw in
this tent, but should anyone ever ask, or should you try to
speak of it – or even if someone uses magic to pull the
28 | SEBASTIEN DE CASTELL

memories from your mind – you’ll suddenly remember it

differently.’
‘And what will we remember, should that occur?’
Galass asked.
I wondered if she knew how prescient that question
was. Implanting false memories is tricky. I’d have to imagine
a series of events between us that people like Ascendent
Lucien would find believable, and that was something I
very much didn’t want to imagine. ‘You’ll remember me as a
cruel – though not excessively so – user of your bodies and
tormentor of your psyches. You’ll recall me being arrogant,
mean-spirited and, in the end, dismissive.’
‘That’s no different than any other night,’ Fidick said,
with a faint smile.
How the kid could live the life he did and joke about it,
I had no idea.
‘We accept the bargain,’ Galass said. ‘But I must warn
you, Silord, that not magical trickery will prevent me
remembering every detail exactly as it occurred. I’m not so
easily glamoured as some you may have met in the past.’
Everyone says that. Even me.
‘Nonetheless,’ she went on, ‘you have my oath that I
will never repeat anything that takes place inside the walls
of this tent.’
‘Your oath?’ I asked.
I guess my tone was off.
‘Yes, my oath. Is the oath of a sublime a matter of
amusement to you?’
‘The only thing I find funny about you is that you
seem to think I value one person’s oath over another’s.’ I
 The Malevolent Seven | 29

handed each of them their coins. ‘I’m going to cast the

spell now. Are you ready?’
They looked at each other first, which I liked, then
nodded.
The spell itself wasn’t complicated – it’s not even espe-
cially powerful. The mind doesn’t have ‘memories’ in the
way we think of them, just fragments from which it recon-
structs events after the fact. I watched the looks of all-too--
familiar discomfort on Galass and Fidick’s faces as I
fiddled with glowing black sigils in the air between us and
pushed my unpleasant imaginings into their minds. If
pressed, they’d remember this night as no different from
just about any other.
The world is an awful place sometimes. Better people
than me have failed to rise above its ways.
‘What now?’ Galass asked, holding on to the bed post
for balance. ‘What are we about to witness that so damns
you it must never be revealed?’
I went back to my chest, unspelled it again and took
out a brazier and two small leather pouches, one dark
blue, the other a faint pinkish hue. I returned to the centre
of the tent, opened the darker pouch and poured the
glinting azure sand into a three foot circle which I then
surrounded by a larger, four foot circle. After making
there were no gaps in either, I opened the second pouch
and used the pale salmon-coloured sand within to create
a thinner circle between the other two. ‘I’m going to
summon a demon.’
They both gasped, and I suddenly realised I hadn’t
sealed the tent to keep them from running away – but
30 | SEBASTIEN DE CASTELL

whether from fear of my retribution or some perverse

sense of honour, neither of them fled.
‘A demon?’ Galass demanded. ‘The Ascendant called
you a chance mage – isn’t that one whose spells are drawn
from the Fortunal plane? Does this mean you’re really a
servant of the Infernals who traffic in thrice-damned
conjurations condemned by the Celestines themselves?’
I chuckled at that, which was cruel given how terrified
the two of them looked. I wasn’t trying to be mean; I just
find it funny the way regular people talk about the Infer-
nals. ‘Don’t panic,’ I said as I prepared the summoning, ‘as
demons go, he’s actually kind of a nice guy.’
 READY TO JOIN THE SEVEN?

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OTHER BOOKS BY SEBASTIEN DE
CASTELL

THE GREATCOATS SERIES

Traitor’s Blade
Knight’s Shadow
Saint’s Blood
Tyrant’s Throne

THE COURT OF SHADOWS SERIES

Our Lady of Blades (coming 2024)
Play of Shadows (coming 2025)

THE SPELLSLINGER SERIES

Spellslinger
Shadowblack
Charmcaster
Soulbinder
Queenslayer
Crownbreaker
Way of the Argosi
Fall of the Argosi

COLLECTIONS
Tales of the Greatcoats Vol. 1
 ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Sebastien de Castell had just

finished a degree in Archae-
ology when he started work on
his first dig. Four hours later he
realized how much he actually
hated archaeology and left to
pursue a very focused career as
a musician, ombudsman, inter-
action designer, fight choreographer, teacher, project
manager, actor, and product strategist. His only defence
against the charge of unbridled dilettantism is that he
genuinely likes doing these things and that, in one way or
another, each of these fields plays a role in his writing. He
sternly resists the accusation of being a Renaissance Man
in the hopes that more people will label him that way.
Sebastien's acclaimed swashbuckling fantasy series,
The Greatcoats. was shortlisted for both the 2014
Goodreads Choice Award for Best Fantasy. the Gemmell
Morningstar Award for Best Debut, the Prix Imaginales
for Best Foreign Work, and the John W. Campbell Award
for Best New Writer. His YA fantasy series, Spellslinger,
was nominated for the Carnegie Medal and is published
in more than a dozen languages.
 Sebastien lives in Vancouver, Canada with his lovely
wife and two belligerent cats. You can reach him
at www.decastell.com